The present invention is generally directed to word processing or document processing programs and, more particularly, relates to a method for manipulating the location of page-breaks within an electronic document and automatically formatting the remainder of the document in response to manipulating a page-break.
Personal computers have become a primary platform for generating documentation in a variety of settings such as business offices, homes, schools, and the like. The ability to use a personal computer for creating documents has been greatly facilitated by the development of computer applications such as xe2x80x9cMICROSOFT WORDxe2x80x9d, a word processing program, and xe2x80x9cMICROSOFT EXCELxe2x80x9d, a personal and business accounting spreadsheet program, both published by Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash. These programs and similar programs are generically referred to as xe2x80x9cdocument processing programsxe2x80x9d. Operating these programs on a computer, allows a user to generate documents which can then be stored on magnetic media for future use and/or printed on paper. A document stored on magnetic media is referred to as an xe2x80x9celectronic documentxe2x80x9d or a xe2x80x9csoft-copyxe2x80x9d, whereas a printout of the document is referred to as a xe2x80x9cprint-outxe2x80x9d or a xe2x80x9chard-copyxe2x80x9d.
When using a document processing program to generate or modify an electronic document, the information contained in the electronic document can be viewed on a display device such as a computer monitor. Due to the limited viewing size of the display screen for a typical computer monitor, only a portion of a large document can be viewed at any one time. Thus, most document processing programs include a display scaling feature. The display scaling feature allows users to reduce the display scale of an electronic document so that more information can be viewed on the display screen. Additionally, the user can increase the display scale of an electronic document so that less information can be viewed, but, with more clarity.
Hard-copies of an electronic document are useful when delivering final versions of a document or when proofreading draft versions of a document. Hard-copies are generated by sending a stream of information to a local printer, attached to a port of the computer, or to a remote printer, functionally connected to the computer through a network. The stream of information must conform to specific format and protocol requirements for the particular printer being used. Generally, the stream of information consists of a series of commands (i.e., line-feeds, carriage returns, form feeds, text formats, etc.) and data.
A typical printer may support a variety of paper sizes. To accommodate this, document processing programs may include a feature which allows a user to select or input information defining the dimensions and/or the margins of a page. Based on these dimensions, the document processing program determines the amount of information that can fit on a single page and divides the electronic document accordingly. In a simplistic view, the stream of information sent to a printer when printing multiple pages of an electronic document consist of printable information separated by delimiters. These delimiters, usually referred to as form-feeds, are used to identify the end of a page.
Prior to printing a multiple page electronic document, document processing programs allow the user to identify where the page-breaks of the document are located. A page-break may consist of a code which is embedded within the electronic document and is used for identifying the boundaries of a page. The page-breaks can be used by the document processing program to determine the location that form-feeds should be placed in the stream of information sent to the printer. The page-breaks can be displayed on the display screen in a variety of manners. The method used by the xe2x80x9cMICROSOFT WORDxe2x80x9d product is to place a dashed line between the last line of one page and the first line of the succeeding page. Other products use techniques such as displaying a special character, a solid line, or words such as xe2x80x9cpage-breakxe2x80x9d after the last line on a page.
Prior to printing a document, the user can examine the page-breaks to determine if they are positioned at undesirable locations (i.e., in the middle of a table or between a sub-header and the following paragraph). If a user determines that a page-break is located at an undesirable location, the user can force the page-break to move to a different location. One method to accomplish this is to enter xe2x80x9cwhite spacexe2x80x9d or blank lines above a page-break. This results in forcing the page-break to move down in the document. Another method is to delete white space above a page-break to force the page-break to move up in the document. Other methods such as modifying the spacing of the lines of text, the size of the font, the spacing between paragraphs, etc. can also be used to force the page-break to a new location. Forcing and maintaining page-breaks at specific locations using these techniques can be time consuming, especially for large documents. Therefore there is a need for an improved method for forcing page-breaks to specific locations within a document.
xe2x80x9cMICROSOFT WORDxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cMICROSOFT EXCELxe2x80x9d address this particular need by supporting two types of page-breaks. The first type consists of page-breaks that are automatically inserted, by the document processing program, at page boundaries. These are referred to as automatic page-breaks. As information is entered into or deleted from a document, the document processing program automatically identifies page boundaries and places automatic page-breaks accordingly. The second type consists of page-breaks that a user can enter at any location within the document. These are referred to as manual page-breaks. The manual page-breaks are static within an electronic document. Thus, as information is entered into a document or deleted from a document, the manual page-breaks are not adjusted. For example, consider a manual page-break that is located after the last line of page one and before the first line of page two. If all of the lines on page one are deleted without removing the manual page-break, the manual page-breaking will remain before the first line of page two and page one will be blank.
The use of automatic and manual page-breaks greatly enhances the usefulness of document processing programs; however, current techniques lack efficiency and simplicity. For instance, in order to change the position of a manual page-break, the user typically conducts the following actions:
(1) select a manual page-break by using a mouse or similar means;
(2) delete the manual page-break by entering the appropriate user commands;
(3) allow the document to repaginate automatically or force a repagination by entering the appropriate user commands;
(4) move a pointer to a location to place a new manual page-break; and then
(5) enter a manual page-break by entering the appropriate user commands.
Thus, although providing a manual page-break feature allows a user to force page-breaks to occur at specific locations, there is also a need for a simple and efficient method of manipulating the position of manual page-breaks within an electronic document.
When entering a manual page-break into an electronic document the user must perform steps (3)-(5) of the above listed steps. For large documents, this process can be burdensome. However, because typical document processing programs place automatic page-breaks within a document, it is desirable to have the capability to convert an automatic page-break into a manual page-break and then move the manual page-break to a new location. Therefore, there is a need for a simple and efficient method of converting an automatic page-break into a manual page-break and then moving the manual page-break to a new location.
When users create a hard-copy of an electronic document, they may desire a certain section of data to appear on a single page (i.e., a formatted table, a paragraph, a bulletized list, etc.). The user can force this to occur by entering a manual page-break before and after this section of data. However, if the section of data is too large to fit on one page, a document processing program will usually insert an automatic page-break between the two manual page-breaks. In order to allow more flexibility in formatting the layout of hard-copies of an electronic document, some document processing programs provide a scaling factor. The scaling factor, represents a percentage to either reduce or increase the size of the printed information. Thus, if a user desires to print two pages of information onto a single page, the user can select a reducing scaling factor of 50%. This will reduce the size of the information printed or displayed so that more information can fit on a page.
Defining a scaling factor for a document typically requires a user to select a series of pull-down menu items or enter appropriate user commands followed by a new scaling factor. A problem associated with using scaling factors is that it is not always easy to identify what scaling factor is required to obtain a desired result. The user generally must engage in a trial and error process in order to identify the proper scaling factor. Thus, when using a scaling factor, a user typically conducts the following actions:
(1) select an estimated scaling factor,
(2) perform the steps necessary to enter the scaling factor into the program,
(3) examine the repaginated document to determine if the scaling factor is too large (typically an automatic page-break will appear between the manual page-breaks) or too small (the page contains too much empty space). This process can be quite cumbersome and may require the user to change reiteratively the scaling factors of several pages.
For large documents, performing these steps may be a tedious task. Therefore, there is a need for a method to automatically scale a selected range of data to fit onto a single page.
Providing the ability to move page-breaks within a document amplifies the problems associated with identifying a scaling factor. For instance, if a page is located between two manual page-breaks, and the manual page-breaks are moved relative to each other, then a new scaling factor must be determined. Thus, there is a need for a method to automatically determine the scaling factor for a page located between two manual page-breaks when one of the page-breaks are moved to a new location.
When a scaling factor has been modified for one page of a document, the remainder of the document should also be adjusted by the same scaling factor in order to provide a uniform appearance. In providing this uniform appearance, the smallest scaling factor selected for any particular section of the document should be applied to the entire document. Therefore, there is a need to automatically scale pages of a document as page-breaks are repositioned, select the smallest scaling factor appearing in the document, and repaginate the remainder of the document in accordance with the selected scaling factor.
Thus, there are several problems associated with utilizing page-breaks within an electronic document. Current techniques for providing page-breaks within an electronic document require too much user interaction and are too complicated. Therefore, there is a need for an improved system or method to solve these problems.
The present invention satisfies the above-described needs by providing a system and a method for manipulating page-breaks in an electronic document. This is accomplished by providing two processes: (1) a User Interface Process and (2) a System Process. The User Interface Process provides a graphical user interface allowing a user to select a page-break in an electronic document and then identify a new location for the page-break. The System Process performs the steps of moving the selected page-break to the new location and adjusting the remainder of the document to accommodate the page-break at the new location.
One aspect of the present invention is to provide a method for manipulating the position of vertical and horizontal page-breaks within an electronic document which is being displayed on the display device of a computer system. The computer system includes an input device which is used to interact with a graphical user interface. The input device allows a user to move a display-element to various locations within the displayed electronic document or to send a signal to the computer system to invoke certain actions.
In response to actuating the input device, the display-element may be positioned over a page-break in the electronic document. While the display-element is positioned over a page-break, the input device can be used to send a first signal to select the page-break. When the page-break is selected, a phantom page-break is displayed over the selected page-break, and a drag mode is activated. In response to actuating the input device while the drag mode is active, the phantom page-break can be moved to a new location in the electronic document. At this point, using the input device to send a second signal results in deactivating the drag mode, moving the selected page-break to the new location, and removing the phantom page-break. Thus, it can be appreciated that the present invention provides a simple and efficient method of positioning a page-break within an electronic document.
Another aspect of the present invention is the ability to convert an automatic page-break into a manual page-break in conjunction with moving the page-break. This is advantageous because it simplifies the process of entering and positioning manual page-breaks by eliminating the steps required for inserting a manual page-break. Thus, it can also be appreciated that the present invention provides a simple and efficient method of converting an automatic page-break into a manual page-break in conjunction with moving the automatic page-break to a new location.
Another aspect of the present invention is to automatically maintain and update a scaling factor for each page of the electronic document. The scaling factor identifies an amount to scale the contents of the page in order for the contents to fit within a set of predefined dimensions. When a selected page-break is moved to a new location, new scaling factors for the page immediately before the page-break and the page immediately after the page-break are determined. Prior to determining the new scaling factors, two conditions are examined.
First, if the selected page-break is vertically oriented and an adjacent page-break to the immediate left of the selected page-break is an automatic type page-break, the adjacent page-break is converted into a manual type page-break. Second, if the selected page-break is horizontally oriented and an adjacent page-break immediately above the selected page-break is an automatic type page-break, the adjacent page-break is converted into a manual type page-break. Then, a new scaling factor is determined for the pages bordering the selected page-break if the bordering pages are bounded by manual type page-breaks of the same orientation as the selected page-break. Thus, it can be appreciated that the present invention provides a method to automatically scale a selected range of data (i.e., a the data between two page-breaks) to fit onto a single page. It can be further appreciated that the present invention provides a method to automatically determine the scaling factor for a page located between two manual page-breaks when one of the page-breaks are moved to a new location.
After moving a page-break to a new location, the present invention provides a method to determine a minimum scaling factor for the document and then repaginates the document in accordance with the minimum scaling factor. Thus it can be appreciated that the present invention provides a method to automatically scale pages of a document as page-breaks are repositioned, select the smallest scaling factor appearing in the document, and repaginate the remainder of the document in accordance with the selected scaling factor.
These and other aspects, features, and advantages of the present invention will be more clearly understood and appreciated from a review of the following detailed description of the present invention and possible embodiments thereof, and by reference to the appended drawings and claims.